Why do we need 24bit/48kHz/96kHz/192kHz if 16bit/44.1kHz is good enough? Are there any situations that 16bit/44.1kHz simply cannot satisfy? In other words, is there any real need for the higher bit depth and sampling rate?

Ok, back to the original question of the thread. This is what I'd always thought was the reason for needing higher samplerates. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this.

Firstly as humans, we can all hear up to roughly 22050Hz, and as nyquist worked out, to record all this this frequency and all the ones below it, you have to take a number of samples per second which is double that, so we get to 44100Hz aka 44.1Khz

However if you do this, although it might seem fine, the higher frequencies have less deatail the further up you go. A 22050Hz sound will only get an on and off point, but none of the smoothness of the curve, so it will be a triangle wave. Not to mention aliasing, which might make it capture a half on and half off point.

Now I've been told that this isn't correct, but from everything I've read online it seems to be.

There's also the more debatable issue that higher frequencies add to the warmth of the sound, even though they're inaudible on a concious level. Hence the term analog warmth, where valves would add random high frequencies to the audio.

Anyway thats just some of the stuff floating around in my mind I don't want another TOS 8 violation >_<

The majority of people can NOT hear that high. Most are well below 20KHz, unless you turn up the volume to levels which will certainly damage your hearing.

This thread will end at the same conclusion as every other thread of this kind: for listening, 44KHz/16bits is sufficient and going higher has no benefit(for listening). Thus, the only advantage which media like DVD-A etc will bring is multichannel-support, storage-space for video, etc.

This thread will end at the same conclusion as every other thread of this kind: for listening, 44KHz/16bits is sufficient and going higher has no benefit(for listening). Thus, the only advantage which media like DVD-A etc will bring is multichannel-support, storage-space for video, etc.

- Lyx

Well, for some very, very limited sets of circumstances, one might imagine that 120dB might be required, i.e. a young person with good hearing in the quietest room in the world, listening to a very loud orchestra with lots of percussion, miked pretty close, and wanting to hear the crowd rustle and air conditioning sounds between movements. This would also require quite an extraordinary playback system, indeed. Such playback systems ARE possible, but extremely rare.

But for most (if not all) living rooms, and most people with normal hearing, yes, I think it's pretty much sufficient.

N.B. Before somebody gets nasty and screams TOS (Look, I'm tired of the audio-woo contingent, too, but not every surprising claim is audio woo.), I'm simply stating something that can be observed from Fletcher's zero-loudness curves.

It would be an extraordinary room and system, but both are possible, with effort and cost, and with a young person who doesn't listen to rock to listen.

Well, for some very, very limited sets of circumstances, one might imagine that 120dB might be required, i.e. a young person with good hearing in the quietest room in the world, listening to a very loud orchestra with lots of percussion, miked pretty close, and wanting to hear the crowd rustle and air conditioning sounds between movements. [...]It would be an extraordinary room and system, but both are possible, with effort and cost, and with a young person who doesn't listen to rock to listen.

Would you agree with my argument that prolonged exposure to such a large loudness variation (which means necessarily very loud levels at the loudest peaks) would eventually cause hearing damage, thereby making itself useless?

Well, for some very, very limited sets of circumstances, one might imagine that 120dB might be required, i.e. a young person with good hearing in the quietest room in the world, listening to a very loud orchestra with lots of percussion, miked pretty close, and wanting to hear the crowd rustle and air conditioning sounds between movements. [...]It would be an extraordinary room and system, but both are possible, with effort and cost, and with a young person who doesn't listen to rock to listen.

Would you agree with my argument that prolonged exposure to such a large loudness variation (which means necessarily very loud levels at the loudest peaks) would eventually cause hearing damage, thereby making itself useless?

It depends on the actual duration of the loud parts, but in general, I agree that listening over a short-term or long-term mean of 85dB SPL is bad news.

On the other hand, means to measure exposure are still rather primitive, and even those of us who prefer to be in quiet surroundings routinely see peaks well above that. Consider applause, but we don't all go deaf from it.